Essay on Sociological Analysis of The Film Riding in Cars with Boys

After reading over the description of our film analysis paper, the movie "Mean Girls" that was produced in 2004, came into my mind because this movie contains several sociological themes. Although the film is over a decade old, most high school students seem to be able to relate to this film today since it shows us examples of sociological conflicts such as social conflict theory, social class, and sexuality.

Mean Girls is about a girl named Cady who joins an elite social group at her new school known as the Plastics. While socializing with the Plastics, Cady develops a new, mean girl, personality and ends up sabotaging the group’s leader, Regina, and becomes the new leader of the Plastics. Regina retaliates by spreading the burn book, a book the Plastics filled with insults and gossip about other students, around the school leading to a riot and Cady takes the blame. Cady realizes that her new personality is wrong and apologizes to the school, makes amends with her old friends, and forms a truce with Plastics who disband and become regular students (Mean Girls, 2004).

The movie that I watched that has many references to our introduction to sociology course is The Boy In the Striped Pajamas. The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is about a little 8 year old boy named Bruno who must move to the country side with his family because his father who is a General in the Nazi military becomes assigned command of a Jewish concentration camp. The house that the family moves into is close to the concentration camp; Bruno can see the camp from his bedroom window in the distance. Bruno does not realize it is a concentration camp, he believes it is a farm. He sees a little boy sitting down at the camp and asks his mother if he may play with the boy in the striped pajamas. Of course his mother

3. Todd and Edna have been married for three years. They have had serious personal problems. Edna is a heavy drinker, and Todd cannot keep a job. Also, they have bickered and fought constantly since their marriage. Deciding that the way to overcome their problems is to have a child, they stop practicing birth control, and Edna becomes pregnant.

What if I told you that I know the outcome of your life and where you will end up before you even know it? Wouldn’t you be scared? See for a regular person who has a supporting family around them this question will almost feel almost like a death sentence. Nobody wants anyone to judge them before they even go through life on what they will end up being.

For this assignment, I will be analyzing the 2004, blockbuster film White Chicks with specific reference to dimensions of social stratification such as gender, class, and race. White Chicks follows the story of two African American FBI agent brothers, Kevin and Marcus Copeland who accidently foil an assiduously executed undercover operation intended to capture a group of notorious Dominican drug smugglers. As a final opportunity to redeem their tarnished reputations, the two agents take on an assignment far below their customary standards when they agree to escort billionaire heiresses Brittany and Tiffany Wilson to the Hamptons in order

She does not feel safe and ends up taking pills because she thinks that they can get rid of her pain. She is only an adolescent and does not realize that she can ruin her life by becoming addicted to taking pills. After a while, she meets a sixteen-year-old boy and without her seeing it, he takes advantage of her. He knows that she is going through a lot, so he pretends that he loves her so he can have sex with her. Erica truly believes that she is in love, so when he asks to have unprotected sex, she agrees. She becomes pregnant and the “love of her life” decides that “he ain’t ready for a kid,” so he leaves her. Now Erica is stuck with the responsibility to not only take care of herself, but also for the child that she will be having. Even though her life is not fair, she is unable to face her consequences and “she says she’s about to run away and never come back.”

In the 1991 drama “Boyz in the Hood”, Written and Directed by John Singleton. He successfully attempts to portray what life was like and in some areas in America still is for African Americans living in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood. It displays a portrait of the harsh realities that plagues the black community and by displaying uninviting living conditions that is South Central L.A, Singleton aims to share to the world the self-destructive deviant behavior that is to this day, destroying the African American community. Some of the self-destructive deviant behaviors include gang life, selling drugs, and gun violence. Various issues are displayed in this movie involving the black community including deviance, poverty, gentrification, the importance of a father in a young man’s life and black on black crime. Singleton displays a tale of three friends growing up in the “hood”, plagued by drugs and violence and layers textures over rough and compelling visuals of black culture that shows us what it means to come to maturity, or die trying, as a black male. In this essay, I will be giving a thorough analysis of the film, as well as covering certain points from the movie from a sociological perspective to explain why singleton chose to write this film.

Fast forward 7 years later to a now older Tre Styles, his educational background has grown and the only minor source of trauma that has occurred could be the change of living with his father instead of his mother now. Tre still talked to his mom

Sociologists use many different theoretical perspectives to study the behavior of people in society. According to Macionis, sociology uses both a micro-level and macro-levels to look at both the big picture and the smallest details (p.17). There are three major analytical models in sociology that include functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction. Both functionalism and conflict theory are macro-level and symbolic interaction is micro-level (Macionis, P.19). Each one looks at society in a different way and can in this paper I will analyze the movie “The Breakfast Club” using these perspectives.

Boyz N the Hood, displays the challenging upbringing of adolescents who have to live with harsh conditions around not only their home but also their surrounding town. The film compares the differences between the lifestyles of Tre Styles and his friends’, Darren and Ricky Baker. Darren and Ricky are half-brothers who are nothing alike. Singleton demonstrates the importance of male leadership in a home in the ghetto of Los Angeles by comparing the difference between the lifestyles of Tre and his friends. While many adolescents in the hood have close friendships, some form close relationships by assembling gangs and create a world of violence due to alcohol abuse, which together ultimately breeds discrimination.

Benny tells them that last year’s rent was due and they refuse to pay their rent. Meanwhile, a street percussionist transvestite Angel finds Collins beat up on the street and they both immediately attract and find out they both have AIDS. When Benny cuts off the power in the building, Mark heads out while Roger is left alone until Mimi Marquéz, a club dancer one apartment downstairs from Roger and Mark’s, asks him to light a candle and she starts flirting with him. Although Roger likes her, he doesn’t want to be in a relationship after losing his girlfriend April, who killed herself because she found out she had HIV.

Hood: slang for neighborhood or black area/life. Before 1991 this concept of hood life was never before portrayed or looked into until John Singleton produced the black social drama Boyz N the Hood. This is the first film by a black director that actually goes deep inside the ghetto or inner city. Singleton carefully directs this film so that it appears to mirror the real world “having value as a kind of anthropological study of an unfamiliar way of life'; (Thompson 2).

She lost another love by the name of Oluf, could not find much work, and lost hard-earned money through a bad business investment. After all this peril she took Russell and Doris and moved to Baltimore. Another move equaled more stress, less money, and more struggling to get by. With what seemed to be the world against her, she made it. She remarried, bought a house, and became the success she demanded of herself. Every step of the way Russell was exposed to all the ups and downs. His mother’s life during those times shaped and influenced his own.

CIN 303 Response to Boyz N the Hood and Review by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times